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Mozilla ends support for Firefox 1.5

Just six months after Firefox 2.0 was released, Mozilla is ending support for Firefox 1.5. And you thought Microsoft was short shrifting customers by phasing out Windows XP by the end of this year. At least Microsoft offer support and updates for about 5 years.

April 24th is the last day Firefox 1.5 will be officially supported. The developers have moved to a consumer-oriented model with a short product lifespan and regular browser upgrades. While this isn’t great for corporate users who are slow to implement updates, it’s worked pretty well in terms of keeping Firefox on the cutting edge.

About 40% of Firefox users are still running version 1.5.0.x, so this might be a good time to upgrade.

Update: It looks like Mozilla will support Firefox until mid-May, but is encouraging everyone to upgrade to Firefox 2 now.

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No Comments | Posted in » Firefox

Wikipedia to go Offline

After years of successful topics and entries that everyone has had the ability to contribe to, the online free encyclopedia is finally going offline.

Ok, so it’s not going offline in the traditional sense of shutting down, Wikipedia has created a DVD version of Wikipedia, with close to 2,000 hand picked articles from a group of academics and Wikipedia staff.

The CD is selling for $13.99, which seems like a rather high price for something that can be accessed for free online. But hey, if you don’t have internet access this is the next best option. The Wikipedia Foundation DVD is first available in English format, with a French format as well as other launguages in development.

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No Comments | Posted in » Web Services

Microsoft sells just 244 copies of Vista in China

Chasing after software pirates in the US is one thing, but China’s a whole other ballgame. Pirated copies of Windows Vista are widely available throughout the country, for as little as $1.

So while Microsoft spent millions to promote Vista in China, the company apparently sold just 244 copies of the operating system during the first two weeks it was legally available in China.

Microsoft has spent a lot of time and effort making it as difficult as possible for pirates to activate copies of Windows Vista. But just last week Microsoft admitted that there were two working activation cracks that the company has no plans to fix. It’s not clear what method Chinese users are using to activate pirated copies of Vista.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

No Comments | Posted in » Microsoft

Ubuntu 7.0.4 officially released

Ubuntu 7.0.4 (Feisty Fawn) has officially been released and is available to download from the official Ubuntu website. The release follows a very short Feisty Fawn beta, which just became available to the public last month.

Ubuntu’s next release Gutsy Gibbon is expected to be released — in typical, rigid Ubuntu release schedule fashion — just 6 months from now.

Ubuntu’s install CDs are also Live CDs, so you can get a feel for how an installed Ubuntu system will behave, even without changing a single bit on your hard drive.

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No Comments | Posted in » linux distributions, ubuntu

Google phone out by late 2007

HTC, the company that has supposedly been hard at work manufacturing the Google phone apparently has a date for shipping the finished product. According to the handsets component makers, the official ship date will be the end of 2007, and could reach as high as one million units for the first run.

Unfortunately the handset will not have GPS functionality; it will support 3G and EDGE platforms. The top features of the phone will include preinstalled Gmail and Google Search functionality.

This device is expected to hit European telecom providers first, possibly Orange, before hitting North American soil.

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No Comments | Posted in » Google

iPhone cases (not clones) already in China

No, those aren’t iPhone clones… they are however the first of many iPhone accessories to come. Presumably without any help from Apple — armed only with official specs and photographs taken from every conceivable angle found clogging the Intertubes — industrious Chinese manufacturers are already churning out iPhone cases. These two were spotted at the Hong Kong Electronics and Components Fair looking for distribution. What better way to protect your cardboard cutout until late June? Hotly anticipated would be an understatement.

Popularity: 4% [?]

No Comments | Posted in » Gadjet

Microsoft announces Silverlight, a Flash competitor

Microsoft Silverlight, in Microsoft’s wording, is a next-generation, cross-platform, cross-browser web client runtime. In other words, a Flash competitor.

This is a runtime that will allow the playback of files using various forms of interactivity on both PC and Mac platforms. Silverlight will essentially deliver rich interactive applications for the web that incorporate video, animation, and interactivity. It also has the ability to run in fullscreen HD video mode while supporting 720p video, and through mobile devices.

Will this be a flash killer? Only time will tell, but Microsoft sure looks like they are pushing the whole rich and compelling web experience angle. There are more details as to Silverlights capabilities in an MSDN blog post. No word as to whether Microsoft will add support for Linux as of yet.

Check out the competition which also just launched this past weekend,Adobe Media Player, a standalone flash video player.

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No Comments | Posted in » Microsoft